UK born photographer Eliot Lee Hazel takes gritty and cinematic photographs that are well composed, stylish yet with a raw edge. His images are like fragments of dreams or stories told, triggering the brain to start associating. Hazel’s images can be compared to cliffhangers, raising more questions than answers. He has worked for various musicians like Morcheeba, Yeasayer and Basement Jaxx, to name a few.

We’ve entered a strange territory in photography, where the software benefits & ubiquity of a mobile operating system like Android, meet the hardware of a decent point and shoot. I’ve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Camera for the last month, so I figured I’d share a few thoughts.

A smart camera.

This is, first and foremost, a large point and shoot camera. As camera software goes, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is a breath of fresh air. This is a huge win over any custom OS that attempts to reinvent the wheel. You can install any app available in the Google Play store, from Instagram to games to Wifi-tethering apps. The touchscreen is also amazing. It’s huge. With the camera app open, it makes every type of photo easy to see, frame & capture.

For a phone-less camera, it’s super connected.

Because it comes with GPS, Wifi & 3G connectivity, it makes sharing your photos while you’re on the road really easy. In fact, I’d call it a potential lifesaver. You can set it up to auto-upload to Dropbox or Google+, so if you lose your camera, you’ll still have your photos. Or you can use it to Skype the Icelandic police when you lock yourself out of your car at dusk, in a sand storm, in the middle of nowhere. True story.

Optical zoom is great. Photo quality is so-so.

At 16 megapixels, it outputs photos larger than what phones currently can, yes, but are they better? Not entirely. The lens and 21x optical zoom give you more versatility than a smartphone, but if you examine the photos below closely, you’ll see some JPEG compression and color fringing. For $500 bucks, it’s certainly not as good as you’d find in another equally priced point and shoot camera.

The camera comes pre-installed with the Photo Wizard editing app, which is sufficient for some, but you’ll probably want to install PicsPlay Pro if you want more control & full resolution exports. It’s the best Android photo editor I can find.

Awkward to hold when you type.

You’ll be using the touchscreen keyboard just as much as you would when operating your standard Android phone, which means you’ll want to hold the screen like a phone, which also means you’ll be holding a camera in a way it wasn’t meant to be held – lens to palm. Not ideal. Thankfully this one has an automatic lens cover.

A note for heavy Instagram users…

The zoom lens opens and extends every time you activate the camera, so if you’re indecisive like me when choosing a photo to post to Instagram, you’ll find the camera opens and closes repeatedly. One of those nobody saw it coming kind of things.

Overall

There are some usability & quality issues between hardware and software that need figuring out, but the Galaxy Camera is pretty killer considering all you can do with it (hat tip to Android). It’s more camera than smartphone, but when you consider portability, smartphones may still win in the end once smaller, mobile sensors catch up in quality.

The guys over at Dream Chimney are the guys that you imagine when you think of a group that has the vinyl collection people only dream about. So who better to go to for a mix when everyone else is making mix? these gentleman.

I recently travelled back to Santiago, Chile (where I grew up) for one of my best friends wedding, and while there I was amazed by how many good local bands I was exposed to and how good of a music scene that city has.

Amongst them was Zebra, a dream-wave trio formed by DJ/Producer Sebastian Roman (Roman/MKRNI), Miguel Irarrazaval (Treboles) and Enrique Escala (Treboles), who with their first EP “AD Portas I” caught the attention of Picnic Kubun’s label Endemika Records. I was instantly blown away by the level of sophistication in their arrangements and catchy hooks, not to mention how virtuosos they are in regards to live instrumentation, so when they asked me to design an album cover for their upcoming release, I was honored (I’m also working on an official music video…more on that later).

Today, Zebra unveiled the title track of that release, which carries the name of “Summer Love” and is set to drop early March, 2013.

I recently acquired some concrete art form Concrete Cat. They keep impressing me with the things they are doing in concrete. From a clock collaboration with Furni to Matt Heide’s Concrete Tactile Painting to larger furniture and counter tops. I love seeing an artist evolve with their craft as they push the limits of its intended purpose.